Bowel cancer screening support

NHS bowel cancer screening checks if you could have bowel cancer. It’s available to everyone aged 60 to 74 years.

The programme is expanding to make it available to everyone aged 50 to 59 years. This is happening gradually over 4 years and started in April 2021.

You use a home test kit, called a faecal immunochemical test (FIT), to collect a small sample of poo and send it to a lab. This is checked for tiny amounts of blood.

At Park Road Surgery, we support the NHS Bowel Screening Programme. If you are in the eligible age group and have recently received a bowel screening kit through the post, we would ask you to complete and return the test.

Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK. The aim of the Bowel Screening Programme is to discover bowel cancer at an early stage, before symptoms have a chance to develop. The sooner it’s caught, the easier it is to treat and treatment is more likely to be successful. Bowel screening involves a simple test that you carry out in your own home.

We encourage you to consider doing this screening test, which you then send off in the envelope for analysis. Whether or not to do the test is your choice, so you should read the information you were sent with your screening invitation to help you decide.

If you have not received your screening pack or wish to have another sent out to you, please telephone the following number, which is the bowel screening helpline: 0800 707 6060.

If you’re not sure how to complete the test itself or want more information, this website will give you further information: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bowel-cancer-screening/

or speak to your practice nurse who can explain how to complete the kit.

If there is anything else that you’d like to know or discuss about bowel screening, please do not hesitate to contact the surgery for further advice.